Feds To Push More Online Copyright Crackdowns

White House intellectual property czar Victoria Espinel told a conference Monday that there will be more domain seizures for online copyright infringement, Politico reported.

“We are going after the piraters and counterfeiters,” Espinel said at a Brookings Institution conference on Internet policy, adding that intellectual property infringement poses a “direct threat” to consumers and costs jobs, Politico reported.

CyberMonday saw Homeland Security seize about 80 websites selling counterfeit products and providing access to pirated movies.

“The innovative use of the tools currently available to law enforcement to seize these domain names is similar to the remedy that would be specifically authorized under the bipartisan Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act for websites that are registered in the United States,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who sponsored the legislation, Politico reported.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation stated “Although it is ostensibly focused on copyright infringement, an enormous amount of noninfringing content, including political and other speech, could disappear off the Web if it passes, an earlier article on the COICA being blocked stated.